Well after the summer hiatus where there were opportunities for players to work on their tans, recuperate from season 2007 and then prepare for the upcoming season which kicked off at Brindisi St. Mentone where we played the newly promoted and extremely confident St. Bede’s Mentone Tigers.

Your correspondent had spent a couple of seasons with the Tigers in the mid 1990’s and had always kept an eye out for their results, had enjoyed his time there and was really pleased to see them make A grade for the 1st time in their history, but there would be no opportunity to reflect upon that as we prepared to play on what was an outstanding surface.

Firstly, full credit to the Kingston Council for their work on the ground and the cooperation they have shown with the club to help develop an outstanding facility, and upon consideration maybe we should send the powers that be from the Clowncil of Stonnington to undertake a fact finding mission to learn the importance and inner secrets of managing turf. Pssst… the use of water helps.

To the game, and we welcomed a few new players into our ranks for season 2008 and in many ways it was also a learning opportunity for the staff to assess and learn more about players in the real stuff. Practice matches are great, but to be fair trying to manage 35 players in shortened game times is not ideal and it may have left some of the players a bit short come round 1, and given the cockroach a false sense of where the players are at.

This year also saw the introduction of Matt “The Big Pickle” Nichol into the ranks of the coaches and his input was valuable and his work with our young players was reflected in the efforts of the forward line and their defensive pressure was directly responsible for at least 3 goals.

The game was as to be expected quite scrappy at the start as players all tried to get the 1st touch of the season which would allow them to settle the nerves and re-establish their love of the egg shaped sphere and its sometimes cruel and odd bounces.

An early lead was established, but it was probably not a real reflection of the amount of play we had and that was frustrating as the work rate was high, the harassment of the opposition was good, but it was the final execution that was astray. Here was something for players and cockroaches to work on in the coming weeks.

It was more of the same on the 2nd with the players hassling, bustling and forcing turnovers through very good pressure and slowly establishing a little lead that again was not really indicative of the balance of play.

We were well served by the new players in Al Roberts who was opposed to Brett Collins the rookie listed sensation (St. Bede’s marketing and promotion machine told me) and was more than breaking even, Billy Dwyer back from an extended trip in foreign climes, James “Legga” Lamb as the crumbing forward who’s efforts had been instrumental in him being responsible for a couple of goals, Mick Dundon at CHB who had established a strong dominance over his opponent along with the Tim Kovess who’s strength in the contested issues was vital to thwarting the opposition.

We kicked away on the 3rd and probably established a match winning lead but for some wayward kicking and when we kicked the opening of the last it should have been enough. As the crowd built the home team lifted and kicked a couple of ‘softish’ goals, but praise must be given to their forwards who maintained their position and did not go chasing kicks, and when a forward for the home team was awarded a free kick for over the shoulder directly in front it was game over.

To lose by a point is hard, but in many ways more can be learned from a loss than a win and it allows all concerned to understand where players are at, how they handle pressure and what responses they will make to rectify what they may see they have done wrong.

We huffed and puffed in the closing moments and some bizarre decisions by the umpires were paid and then not paid – including 2 very different interpretations on deliberate out of bounds at either end of the ground, but that would be cruel to the home side who kept at the task all game.

Better aspects in what was a very young team was the potential and the efforts of the younger players in Dundon, Roberts, Reid, Lamb, Hansen, the return of Bill Dwyer, Matt Fieldsend after a year out due to travel and injury and the consistency of Tim Kovess and Ro Buckley over the course of the game.